


winter comes as a maid

by subnivean



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU from Theon & Sansa jumping off of Winterfell, Abuse, F/M, Gen, Ramsay Bolton Is His Own Warning, Torture, but sansa is magical now so that's a plus?, everything is still sad and most things still hurt, look I just wanted to write, magical girl Sansa Stark, not quite a fixit, switcheroo of people who live & die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 07:42:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subnivean/pseuds/subnivean
Summary: when you can't be a girl, so you become a monster instead





	winter comes as a maid

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god so many warnings, jump to the end if you need them but with the caveat that i am probably missing something
> 
> eta: thank u to my alpha reader ao3 user zeffyamethyst, a true friend when u are in need

It was cold forever, sharp through her muscle and biting deep into her bones. Sansa was sure she would die from it. Theon's arm wrapped around her propped her up and moved her forward but even he stumbled. Behind them she thought she heard the baying of Ramsay's hounds. It was too soon for it to be them, so she was imagining it. But it felt real, and terror shook her as strongly as the cold.  
  
They were wet from the river and the water was freezing to ice, clinging to the cloth of Sansa's skirts and cloak, leaching all hope of warmth from her skin. She couldn't feel her feet. They'd hurt, deeply and terribly, before going utterly numb. Frost might take her toes. Still they kept moving.  
  
Theon urged them faster and faster, but couldn't keep to his own pace. He fumbled more and his words began to slur. He tripped and took her down with him. Sansa was too distant from herself to even be alarmed. Falling didn't seem such a disaster; but then they couldn't get back up. Theon's arm gripped her tighter and he curled into a comma against her. She felt the broad ridge of his forehead against her breast, like a child seeking comfort.  
  
He sobbed. ""m sorry. Milady. Sansa, I'm sorry. I would have taken you to the Wall." The words were garbled in his chattering mouth.  
  
She shushed him; clutched his shoulders and stroked his hair with hands that had long since lost sensation. "It's all right," she murmured. Oddly, she didn't shiver. She had stopped some time ago. "It's all right, Theon." She had a thought of dragging them out of the open, out of the wind. But it seemed like such effort, and she was weary. The cold had numbed her through and she felt a queer warmth now. A drowsy sort of quiet overcame her. Sansa was calm.  
  
She and Theon held one another and slept.  
  
***  
  
She woke in the dark. Theon's arms had stiffened around her. He was cold and without breath. Alertness flooded through Sansa. A dead man held her. She wrestled free of his grip and then stood, on feet she could once again feel.  
  
It was night but she could still see, everything cast in gray and black, moonlight reflecting off of the blanketing snow. Theon was a shriveled figure of a man at her feet. Sansa knelt by him. She stroked his hair. It was brittle and damaged. She thought touching him like this would be tender, like when she would stroke the hair of her younger siblings. But it was unmistakably her touching a dead thing. She didn't know why she wasn't also dead. She stroked Theon's hair one more time. She thought she could say goodbye to some part of him that remained, but there was nothing. He was gone.  
  
Sansa stood and began to walk.  
  
***  
  
Sensation had come back to her in her sleep. No part of her was numb now save her heart and her mind. The killing cold now felt mild, and pleasant. Sansa suspected she had died and this was a dream – a gift or a taunt from the Stranger. But the longer she kept walking the less she thought this was so. It felt too real to be a dream. She breathed crisp sharp air and felt the give of snow beneath her. Wind whispered through her hair and tangled it against her cheek. Mayhap the old gods had revived her and given her strength against the cold.  
  
She kept walking. Sound traveled differently when the ground was blanketed with snow. Echoing howls surrounded her; this time, they were real. Ramsay was coming. He was coming for her.  
  
Sansa tried to run but there was no use. Her husband caught her at the treeline. She cursed the moonlight that she could see his grin, rictus and gruesome, stretched, stretched wide across his face.  
  
***  
  
He punished her.  
  
Not her face or her hands. These still needed to be presentable. Not her womb, so that she could still give him sons. But the other tender places of her body he bruised, and cut, and flayed.  
  
A small sample of what she could look forward to should she attempt another such excursion, Ramsay said. He made her watch as he fed her skin to his dogs.  
  
***  
  
He had grave admiration for how beautifully she scarred.  
  
***  
  
There was no leaving her room now. The door was locked when he wasn't in it and he never took her out of it. Every night he came to get a babe on her. _My lovely bride_ , he'd say, play-acting at sweetness. He would stay an hour or more. Sometimes taking her once and then toying with her until he was ready to take her again. Ramsay didn't like that she had withdrawn even further. He slapped her about sometimes, trying to rouse a reaction. He slapped her face and her teats. The first time it shocked her and he grimace-grinned; but she grew stoic to it. He held her down and slapped her cunt, spanking it harshly until she twisted in pain beneath him. He said he would stop if she'd kiss his prick, if she'd _beg_ to kiss it, and she did. She didn't know how love-making could ever be something beautiful, like in Margaery's whisperings and the songs that enraptured her as a child. No: it was a horror to be endured.  
  
Sansa was cold, deep inside. In the core of her. She knew that was where her death had gone. Winter had come and plucked out her heart and nestled itself into the empty space.  
  
***  
  
She dreamt of sleeping with Theon on the snow. They were children. He looked so lovely and young. Healthy and untroubled. She held him close to her. The snow was perfect and white, not dirtied. Like in a storybook. And it was warm. They were so warm.  
  
***  
  
That night Ramsay had a present for her. A box of chewed bones. "My dogs finally finished with him," Ramsay said, fondly caressing a thigh bone. "Not much meat on our Reek, but he gave them a few suppers."  
  
Later he fucked her from behind and called her his lovely bitch. He pinched and twisted her nipples until she howled for him and he laughed joyously and called her his good bitch, good dog. She sobbed against the bed, pressing her face into the covers. He reached between her legs and pinched her there, punishingly, his cruel fingers twisting until she shrieked and thrashed. He liked it when she hurt as he took her. He liked what it made her body do. How she couldn't control what her body would do.  
  
He didn't leave once he'd spent himself. He turned on his side next to her on the bed and stroked her back gently. Stroked her flank softly. "You never said thank you," he said, voice soft. Ramsay's voice was always soft. "Your Lord Husband brings you a gift, my Lady. What do you say?"  
  
Madness gripped her. It was the only explanation. Sansa lifted her head from the bed and said, clearly, "Fuck you."  
  
Stillness hovered between them, then shattered, like first frost beneath a footstep. Ramsay fisted a length of her hair and hauled her up and backward, pulling her off the bed, throwing her against the wall. She hit it with a thud against her shoulder and side. He tsk'd her, shaking his head mock-sorrowfully. "What manners. And I thought I'd wed a gently-bred lady, but now I find nothing but a common whore. I've been treating you as my Lady Wife but I see now how you must be used."  
  
Sansa was defiant at first, but in the end he made her beg him. He'd threatened vile things with Theon's bones and she'd wept, near-hysterical, for him to take her with his cock instead. He shushed her, softly, gently, and then made her ask again but with courtly manners.  
  
"Do it prettily, my sweet bride," he said. His eyes glittered as she knelt before him. She felt the coldness of her heart sharpen into ice.  
  
***  
  
She dreamt again of Theon. He stood in sunlight, back straight, tall and proud. "Take heart, my lady," he said. His eyes were steady on her. "Winter is coming."

* * *

 

Ice crept across the small window of her room, spiraling outward from the center of the glass pane. Sansa noted it by the changed manner of light filtering through and she reached to touch with curious fingers. In other places, frost took a window by the edges. In Winterfell, the stone walls themselves held such warmth to guard the glass and keep it clear. Only in deep cold would ice crystals form.

 

She thought it a sudden drop in weather, but when her Lord Husband came to her that evening he stood in the doorway with a thoughtful frown. "Are you not cold, my Lady?" he asked her, courteously. "You have let the fire die out."  
  
She had. It hadn't seemed necessary.  
  
Ramsay smiled mirthlessly, joyless light in his eyes. "Ah, what a jest from the gods. The coldest rooms in all my keep, kept by my frigid wife." But he seemed to know it was no insult to Sansa to be called thus, for he did not pursue the jape. Rather he closed the door behind him and came to her, took her by the hand and drew her to the cold hearth. "Come, let us be warm."  
  
All children of the North learned to kindle a fireplace, even those highborn like Sansa and her siblings. It was the work of a moment given the ample supply of tinder and flint. Ramsay blew gently over the catching flame and fed it with small sticks. He took Sansa's chill hand and held it to the fire, his eyes intent on her fingers' flex.  
  
"You must take care," he chided tenderly. He was so often tender, and if it were only always a taunt Sansa could endure it. But occasionally she thought she could read sincerity in his face, his tone, his acts, and it unsteadied her. He was a mad dog, an insane creature. She couldn't fathom him and so she couldn't predict him. His kindness made her fear.  
  
When her hands were warm, he drew them to his face and had her cradle him with her palms. As she held him she had a sudden fierce desire to be as strong as a knight, to be as strong as Sandor Clegane, so that she could with a sharp twist unmake him. Break his neck and so his hold over her.  
  
_But you are only a weak and silly girl,_ she thought, and didn't turn her face when her husband leaned in to kiss her.  
  
He had her by the fire that night, the only spot of warmth in all the room, and he was gentle with his body and crooning with his words, praising her cunt, praising her teats, pressing kisses against her neck, her cheek. He petted between her legs, the spot he'd only ever twisted and pinched before, his fingers gently rubbing until she keened. Her legs spread wider of their own will and her hips raised to meet the snap of his, and he brought his mouth tenderly to her nipple and suckled it. One hand he kept between her legs, stroking her womanhood, but the other hand he used to hitch her legs higher, to urge them to wrap around him, to take him deeper into the core of herself. Sansa couldn't think, she was only so relieved for it to not hurt. Or – there was pain, certainly, but not so much as there had been in the past. And her body seemed to know how it should move, how it should welcome her husband within it. She shut her mind away and let her body move to its will. Ramsay coupled her for longer than his usual; it seemed difficult for him to reach his peak if he was not hurting her. But finally he began to make those particular sounds and his body began to tremble in that particular way, all signals that the end was approaching.  
  
After, he took her up in his arms and carried her to her bed, settling her on the blankets where he'd repeatedly defiled and degraded her. He gently stroked her face as she stared up at him. "Sweet girl," he said, smiling down upon her, benevolent, as if she were beloved.  
  
_He will look at our children this way_ , Sansa realized, sudden and sharp as a stabbing. _He will touch them this way and smile at them this way and when he is bored he will hurt them. When they threaten or defy him, he will skin them. And if they disappoint him, he will kill them and give them to his hounds, and come to me to give him more._  
  
It was not new information but rather how the knowledge settled into her, enveloped her. Inevitable and drowning.  
  
And the ice of her heart surged forth and filled her brimful.  
  
***  
  
It was not only that Sansa often let her hearth fire die, but that Winterfell was becoming itself colder. She learned of it when Ramsay moved her from her set-apart rooms and closer to the heart of the castle, where their poor servants toiled to keep the fires blazing – to hold the cold off from penetrating deeper than it already had. The waters from the hot springs that coursed through Winterfell's walls were not doing their work. Each person Sansa saw wore what looked to be their thickest furs and their warmest wools. But still they shivered and their faces drew tight with cold, and they huddled their shoulders by their ears as they stamped their feet and could not breathe without exhaling clouds of white vapor.  
  
Ramsay's face was pinched, grim annoyance in his eyes. He had the look of a man denied his simplest pleasures. Sansa thought it must be difficult to flay a man in the extremes of cold – skin was so sensitive to temperature, after all. And it would be truly punishing for the hunter as well as the hunted to lead a chase through this weather. Her Lord Husband suffered his deprivation with ill grace and his sweetness with her evaporated into nothing. His cruelty in her bedchamber redoubled and she filled their nights with her screams and pleas.  
  
The days he would not be parted from her, either, but kept her by his side as he moved through his people or sat court and entertained ravens from his bannermen. There was some unrest among the people and he used her to create an image of himself, husband and Lord, attended to by his Lady. He needed her to be pretty so he had a maid come in the early hours to dress her hair in a crown of braids, and to lace her into the finest of her mother's salvaged dresses. Though she felt no cold, he had her wear white and grey furs. The maid who dressed her hair and saw her bruises hidden beneath her clothes told her she looked very fine, like the Winter Queens of old.  
  
"My brother was King in the North," Sansa reminded the girl, who was called Lin. "Until my good-father betrayed and killed him."  
  
Lin stuttered and paled, then curtsied and mumbled her apologies and fled.  
  
It was perhaps not kind, but Sansa did not think it was cruel. Or if it were cruel, it was only as cruel as the truth could be.  
  
Their Great Hall was crowded with folk who huddled to keep from freezing even as the fires guttered in the hearths, despite the prodding and cajoling of increasingly desperate men and women. It was never this cold this early, the oldest of the men muttered and the oldest of the women shushed them. They remembered past long winters, and were afraid. _The old gods have cursed us.  
_  
This whisper began at a crawl but grew swift legs and raced around Winterfell, leaping from ear to ear. _The old gods have turned from us. Winter has come for us._ They looked to Ramsay and saw him as bastard, son of an oathbreaker who had participated in violation of guest-right. The mutterings, half-fearful, grew wrathful as well. _The bastard has damned us._  
  
Sansa well-remembered watching one riot tear a man to bloody pieces, years ago in Kings Landing. In the game of cyvasse it was possible to position the rabble to overtake the dragon. She kept her face still as porcelain, as steel. It was a slow game she played, but she had time.  
  
But before enough men could be brought in to shelter from the cold, and before enough of those men could be swayed by the murmur of rumour and fear, Lord Umber came to Winterfell and brought with him two hooded bound figures, and all of Sansa's time fell through her fingers and broke against the floor.  
  
***  
  
_Rickon._

* * *

 

 

He had grown so tall.  
  
His hair curled like Robb's, but there was something of Arya in his chin. And he had the same shape and set to his eyes as Sansa's own. He stood, fearful but not cowering – fearful and _angry_  - with his eyes sliding to the head of his slain Shaggydog.  
  
_You did not have to kill him,_ Sansa thought, numb. _To prove this boy my brother. You did not have to kill his wolf. I would know Rickon anywhere._  
  
The receiving hall was silent and still. Lord Karstark whispered something under his breath. Ramsay's face split into a broad and delighted grin.  
  
"A princely gift!" he said. "And a family reunion." He swept his hand to the side, gesturing for Sansa to step forward and take it. "My Lady welcomes her kin, does she not?"  
  
Sansa lowered her lashes and dipped into as graceful a curtsey as she could manage on weak and shaky legs. Her arms trembled. Danger and threat hovered over the room. For a panicked moment she found she could not speak; she pulled her gaze from Rickon and directed it to Umber instead. "I thank you for this much longed for reunion, my lord."  
  
Umber was a hard man and did not look shamed.  
  
Sansa turned her head but slightly, to gaze sidelong at Ramsay. "My Lord Husband, might I retire with my brother to my rooms? I am eager to hear of his travels, but well I know how occupied you are with the business of Warden of the North and I would not wish to disturb you."  
  
"My Lady Wife could never disturb me," Ramsay said, grinning his rictus grin. He pressed a kiss against her knuckles and then pushed her slightly forward, and nodded over her shoulder to the guards by the doors. "There's no need for my good-brother to be bound. He is with family now! Cut him and his woman loose, and escort them to wherever my lady wishes. We will feast tonight in celebration."  
  
Because it was expected, and because she was grateful, Sansa pressed a chaste kiss to Ramsay's cheek and refrained from shuddering as he stroked her hand. She exchanged brief courtesies with Karstark and Umber before turning to her brother and inclining her head. She wanted to say something to him, but feared her voice would fail her. She directed her words to the woman who had come with her brother, instead. "My lady, if it please you, come this way."  
  
The pace to Sansa's room was not _quite_ a run, but it was faster than a quick walk. Sansa's heart beat like a drum, deafeningly loud.  
  
Behind her she heard Rickon inhale, and breathe, "Sansa?" before the woman with him hushed him.  
  
***  
  
Her room could not be barred from the inside, of course. She moved a small chair in front of the door nevertheless. It would give warning if the door shifted even the slightest bit open. Then Sansa turned and seized Rickon in her arms. She felt him startle, his thin young body flail back, before his arms tentatively rested around her shoulders. She tightened her grip. She was taller than him still but mayhaps not for much longer. When last she'd seen him he'd still slept in the nursery, scarce bigger than a babe. Sansa's eyes filled and she let the tears fall. She buried one hand in Rickon's hair. _Brother,_ she thought. _Family. Pack._  
  
She loosened the embrace and stepped back, but did not let go of him. She stared hungrily at his face, uncaring if her own betrayed her. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"  
  
"No." Rickon shook his head, but then his expression twisted.  
  
"I am so sorry for Shaggydog," Sansa said. "I am so, so sorry, Rickon."  
  
"They told me Lady died too."  
  
"Aye, a long time ago. The Lannisters took her." Sansa felt her own face twist, old grief rising sharp in her throat, but she swallowed it down. She glanced sideways, at the woman. "You were captured together. Are you friend to my brother?"  
  
The woman lifted her chin proudly. "More friend than you, I'd think. My lady."  
  
"Osha," Rickon said. Perhaps warningly, perhaps with embarrassment. "She's my sister. Please." To Sansa, he said, "We've been together all this time. Bran trusted her too."  
  
Sansa shut her eyes briefly. Bran. "Is he well?"  
  
"He went beyond the Wall. There was – something, not natural. It told him to."  
  
The woman Osha said, "The greenseer and his sister took him, along with that gentle giant."  
  
"Hodor," Sansa murmured. "Who was this greenseer? And his sister?" She couldn't fathom the meaning behind _beyond the Wall_. It was an act of suicide. But Bran had to still be alive. Sansa couldn't bear it otherwise.  
  
"Howland Reed's children," Rickon said. "Sansa, what happened to you? Why are you here, why are you married to him? His family – what they did – "  
  
"I was sold to him," Sansa said. "It's a long story."  
  
"It looks to be a happy marriage to me," Osha said, face sly and eyes hard. She paced five steps side to side, restless. Her gaze was wary on where Sansa held her brother, as if Osha would like to pull Rickon away, as if Sansa were a danger to him.  
  
"It is not happy and it is not a marriage."  
  
Osha's hostility didn't falter. She seemed even closer to pulling Rickon away. She gazed at Sansa with suspicion and resentment, and there was _no time_ to argue her to understanding.  
  
Rickon was Eddard Stark's trueborn son, a Lord of Winterfell, and a King in the North. The remnants of their family's bannermen would rally to him. The North would always remember him. Ramsay liked his games but he would take no chances. He'd give Sansa these few hours to be happy, and then dash her joy along with her brother's skull. There was no possibility where Ramsay would let Rickon live longer than this night.  
  
So Sansa threw off her furs and tugged up her sleeves, impatient fingers rough with the fine fabric. Past her wrists, her skin was mottled with purple and green and yellow bruises. High up on her forearms were rings of flayed flesh, skin puckered and red, still healing. These, Sansa gestured to. "Do you admire the bracelets my Lord Husband gifted me? His family enjoys the art of skinning. I ran from him and was caught, and was thus punished. I tell you again, it is not happy. It is not a marriage."  
  
She held Osha's gaze until the woman nodded, slowly, near-grudgingly. And then Sansa awkwardly covered her wounds, embarrassed and ashamed to have bared herself so. When she was covered again she cleared her throat. "We must plan," she said, voice pitched soft. "Ramsay will try to kill you tonight, if not sooner."  
  
"Sister," Rickon said.  
  
Sansa avoided looking at him. She regretted, as soon as she had done it, allowing him to see her.  
  
"Sansa," Rickon said, voice hard. He took her hand. His hands were a boy's hands, but callused and hard. He had not lived a lordling's soft life. "I will kill him for you. I swear it."  
  
The moment was tense, but then broke with Osha's snort. "I say your sister can manage her own killing. Give her time." She looked directly at Sansa and bowed her head. "My lady," she said, and this time it was not mocking.  
  
"Ramsay will die, by my hand or someone else's, it matters not. For now we must worry over your death, Rickon." They were not understanding her, they were not _listening_. "You are in danger. Ramsay won't allow you to live. The longer you remain here as a visible living banner, you threaten his rule. There are still lords and ladies who will be loyal to you – the Manderlys, the Mormonts. The Hornwoods have no love for Ramsay after what he did to their Lady. The other great houses of Westeros might even be convinced to shelter and aid you – our cousin, in the Vale. What houses of the Trident who rally still against the Lannisters. You have allies, and legitimacy, and Ramsay fears both. So when I tell you he aims to have you dead before dawn, you must heed me."  
  
It seemed the urgency of her words or perhaps her tone penetrated them, for Rickon and Osha both stilled and tensed. "How will he try to do it?" Osha asked.  
  
Sansa shook her head, frustrated and fearful. "I'm not sure. Too many of the servants saw you come in and go through the halls. I don't think he can get away with killing you outright – the small folk have been muttering that he has brought ill fortune on us by angering the old gods, and killing you would be another oath broken, possibly even kin-slaying through me as his wife. He may have a proxy do it. One of his bannermen's younger sons or brothers may attack you. Or he may not care for the opinion of his foot soldiers and servants, and sentence you at the feast this night for having traitor's blood, and execute you there. Or he may send killers into your rooms tonight and have your bodies fed to his hounds before dawn, and dare any to speak of your disappearance."  
  
Rickon's face was bloodless white. Osha's face was considering, and careful. She said, "So what shall we do?"  
  
"I will stay by your side as much as I am able to ward a proxy killer from you. If one appears, you must fight only as long as it takes to run and hide." Rickon made a protesting sound, and Sansa blithely spoke over it. "If he tries to pass a sentencing at the feast, I believe I can stir the discontented into a riot, however small. I have seen it done before. Ramsay won't expect it and there should be distraction enough for you to escape."  
  
Osha said, "That is a considered plan, my lady. Have you been working on it long?"  
  
"I have been reminding the servants of the oaths the Boltons have broken," Sansa admitted. "It doesn't take much to get the wheel turning. They are not much loved here. It is too early for it to overthrow Ramsay completely, but there should be enough noise and fury for our purposes tonight." She took a deep breath. "You should not be here late tonight for any killers to find you, and so we won't concern ourselves with the last notion. In every case you must leave Winterfell and make for the Wall. Jon Snow is Lord Commander of the Watch, and even though he has vowed to take no part in our politics, he will still shelter you and protect you." She took Rickon's hand in hers. "He loves you well," she said, earnest. "As he loved Robb and Arya, and as he loves Bran. You are his blood and he will guard you. And from there you can rally those loyal to our family, and take back the North."  
  
Rickon jerked his hand away. "You keep saying that I shall do this, go here, do that. Where are you in these plans, sister? Sansa, you must come with us."  
  
"I will be leaving as well," she soothed. "But none of us will leave with the others. You do not know how well Ramsay's hounds can chase you down. Three trails splits his forces. Osha and I will lead them away. You will go to our brother."  
  
"No!"  
  
Now Osha stepped forward and took Rickon's arm in her grip, shaking it lightly, face stern yet compassionate. "Little lord," she admonished. "I don't know much about these things your sister speaks of, but I know that if you are free you can do much more than either I or your sister can. We will get you away from here and if we are taken, you will come for us with the strength of thousands. Is it not so?"  
  
"Robb was King in the North," Sansa added. "You are King in the North, now. And the North remembers. This is what you must do. Say you understand."  
  
"I understand, but I don't agree!" Rickon's eyes blazed and the light in them was so like Arya's that it choked the breath from Sansa. "I won't leave you to die. I'm no craven!"  
  
"Then be a fool!" Sansa turned from him sharply. She took a handful of breaths to compose herself. Fear and rage beat a dual rhythm in her chest. With her back still to her brother, she said, "He won't kill me. He needs babes from me. I will survive. If he captures Osha, I promise you I will kill her myself and she will not suffer long. But if she has survived so far I believe she can survive further, and meet you at the Wall. You must have faith in us, you must believe me when I say this is the only way you live."  
  
"Everyone is always leaving, or, or sending me away. Everyone is always dying! I have no faith, and your words are wind."  
  
Rage drummed louder in her, drowning the fear, drowning all reason. Madness took her once more. Sansa turned and flew across the room to Rickon, clawing at his face, grasping his shoulders, tearing his hair. He stumbled backwards, startled fright overtaking his face, and fell against the wall. Sansa dragged her nails down his cheek and neck, bringing up the lightest prickles of blood in their trail. "Then I will kill you myself! I will kill you here and now! I won't watch what he does to you! You can't make me watch what he does to you! I will kill you, _I will kill you_." The words turned to incoherent screams, and she could feel her hands, now claws, now fists, now open slaps, attacking her little brother who flinched beneath her blows.  
  
Strong arms hauled her backward, and she windmilled her arms in the air, reaching to hurt Rickon who cowered against the wall, eyes big with shock, skin pale with shock, blood stark and red and dripping onto his collar.  
  
Osha pulled Sansa to the opposite corner of her room and set her down and slapped her sharply across the face. The screaming stopped then. Sansa took deep, hyperventilating breaths, then bent over and gasped, then fell to her hands and knees and keened, high and animal and uncontrolled.  
  
***  
  
But in the end it didn't matter that Sansa had lost her mind and that Rickon had witnessed it, that Osha had convinced him, that Rickon had agreed, that he would make his escape and they would be his distractions after all. It didn't matter because that night at the feast Ramsay watched with glittering eyes and macabre grin as Rickon ate and drank and hours later began to vomit, and couldn't stop.

* * *

 

 

The fever took her little brother. It cooked his brain. He went into seizures. Osha tended to him and a rotating measure of servants entered and left his rooms to feed his hearth and bring him broth he couldn't swallow, water he couldn't swallow. Sansa sat at his bedside and watched as Rickon descended further into unconsciousness. He was so young. He wasn't yet a man. She cursed herself for not seeing or suspecting. Of course, poison. Of course. Hadn't some of the rumours been of Domeric Bolton, true-born son, and his fate? She should have known.  
  
Rage and madness receded, and all instead was ice and cold. Sansa traveled away from herself even as she sat at Rickon's deathbed. _I failed him_ , she thought, and it should have been despairing but instead it was dispassionate.  
  
Ramsay came to Rickon's chambers once, and sent his Maester, who could offer next to nothing and who couldn't be trusted, besides.  
  
Osha was grim and wordless. She fought a battle in the room that only she could see. She wrung cloths in cool water and tenderly bathed Rickon's face and chest, and she tried in the early hours to sweat his fever out and in the later hours to bring his temperature down. She called for folk remedies that none had in stock, or so they were told, and she cursed them bitterly, and wept when her face was turned away.  
  
There was one seizure and then there was another, and Osha said, "Maybe if we bring snow and pack it around him," but Sansa said, "No."  
  
A strange feeling moved through her then. A strange knowledge came over her. "That's the wrong kind of cold," she murmured. The words came from a place she didn't know. "I will bring winter to him."  
  
She felt the ice in her chest rise and spread, overtake her skin, gather in her palms. Tenderly, so gently, she cupped Rickon's face with her hands. So like and unlike how she had held her husband once. Rickon's skin was hot, burning, beneath her touch. "The gentle winter," Sansa whispered. "The little sleep. Not the long and deep one. A cold you will wake from, not a cold that will take you." She pressed a kiss to her brother's heated brow. His eyes moved restlessly beneath their closed lids. She brushed wintry kisses against those too. She rested her palms against his neck. And the deep numbing cold moved through her, and from her, and into him.  
  
***  
  
Rickon survived the night. Ramsay was displeased. But his displeasure was tempered by Rickon's continuing sleep.  
  
Ramsay thought it was only a matter of time.  
  
***  
  
Two more days passed with Sansa and Osha at constant vigil. Rickon's fever receded, but they made it seem as if his sleep were a worrying sign and not a symptom of healing. They muttered that his temperature was still high, so that the servants could carry whispers back to Ramsay, who was growing impatient.  
  
Osha watched Sansa steadily, warily. There had been little trust in her ever since Sansa had attacked Rickon, but there was fear now, seeing the cold in Sansa's touch. Sansa couldn't blame her. She didn't understand what she had become either. But they were each devoted in their way to Rickon and this bound them stronger than any fear or doubt.  
  
On the third day, Ramsay came to Rickon's sickbed once more but his gaze was lustful and concentrated on Sansa. It was the longest they'd gone without trying for a babe. She could see how he wanted her. He would call for her to be in her chambers tonight and he would occupy himself with hurting her. And then in the morning he would notice how Rickon still had not succumbed and mayhaps was even improving, and he would try again. Perhaps blunter and bloodier this time, rather than attempting to fool the small folk into thinking the death a blow from the old gods instead of treachery from his own hands.  
  
And Sansa sat with her cool palms pressed against her sleeping brother's wrist, and she thought, _This is the time. We must take this chance._  
  
***  
  
Osha agreed.  
  
***  
  
Guardsmen came in the heart of the night to tell Ramsay of the escape. Her husband was inside of her when he heard, and the look on his face was fearsome. He wasted no time in tormenting her, however, calling for his horse, his hounds, pulling away from her without having finished, his prick an angry shape briskly tucked into his smallclothes. Sansa heard him call for her door to be guarded and for no one allowed within or without, for however long it took Ramsay to return. No food and no water for his bride, he so ordered. No wood for her fire.  
  
Sansa drew the bedclothes over her nakedness. She wasn't cold, but she shivered. She'd thought herself immune – or numb, perhaps – to the fear of consequences. But she knew the terrors her husband could devise; she knew the depravities of his heart. She wasn't sure if she feared more for herself, upon Ramsay's return, or for Rickon, still ill, desperately riding for the Wall.  
  
_I could kill myself_ , she thought. _I could go further than Ramsay's reach._  
  
And indeed in the hours and days to come Sansa would think on it, her death. It seemed a shadow of herself stood in front of her and reached for her with a tender hand. If only she could reach back, and take that offered clasp. But a stubborn core kept her upright and alive. She had made the choice, not just now, but long ago; she had chosen, again and again, even through pain, and uncertainty and fear, even through the horror of watching those she loved die, to survive.  
  
***  
  
When he returned, he tried to make it seem as if he had caught Rickon and the bones he flung at her feet were those of her brother. But Sansa had learned her husband well. Rage and fear gripped him. She wept with relief, trembling over the fallen bones, touching them with soft hands. She mourned the child he must have killed in place of her brother. But her heart was glad, so glad.  
  
Ramsay hurt her as she knew he would. He said she had no need to walk and so broke the bones of her feet and toes. Oddly, she wept more when he sheared her hair to the scalp, ostensibly as a sign of grief for her dead brother. "Piety, my Lady," he tutted over her. Sansa felt bare and exposed with the loss of her hair. Her nape felt under constant threat. She felt more naked than if she'd been denied clothes altogether. Ramsay knew, and gloried in it. He had her hair braided into a token he wore around his arm, a scarlet band that burned every time Sansa caught glimpse of it.  
  
He left her hands whole and bade her embroider a standard for him, new and bright, the flayed man crest of the Bolton name. This was how Sansa knew he anticipated war.

* * *

 

 

Lord Baelish arrived with a company of soldiers and a crate of lemons. He was impeccably groomed as ever, but Sansa saw a tightness in his eyes as he beheld her shorn hair, her shadowed face, and her litter. She could not walk and so must be carried. Her feet were still healing. She had the thought that Ramsay would re-break them whenever they neared wholeness. There wasn't even a convenient lie for the smallfolk – no rumours of a bad fall, a clumsiness on the stairs. When he took her hair he took also a signal of her beauty; she was no longer useful as a Lady to keep the peace. Or, not useful enough to save her from punishment.  
  
Ramsay welcomed Petyr for the Knights of the Vale he was sure Petyr would bring. There were discussions in his solar that Sansa was not privy to. They dined together for two nights before Petyr left. There were lemon cakes each night. Despite everything, Sansa still enjoyed the taste.  
  
Petyr tried to whisper to Sansa alone, but she was never alone, her attendants always at hand to carry her away. He tried to speak to her with his eyes, but she slid her gaze away. She felt a peculiar betrayal when she looked at Petyr. He had sold her to Ramsay. He had intimated there was a plan. But she had no trust or faith for him. He would bring her cousin's men to her husband's side so that they might crush her brother when he came to free her. Lord Baelish was her enemy; she saw that clearly now. She had nothing but coldness for him and when, as he was taking his leave of them, he reached his hand for hers, she wished her touch would chill him. She wished he would freeze where he stood.  
  
The killing cold, the deep and long winter that lived within her breast – she wished it to move into him, and it did. His eyes widened in strange shock and his lips tinged blue. His skin faded to startling paleness and he brought a hand to his chest, then stumbled and fell to his knees.  
  
It was a quick and neat death, no messiness, no ugliness, just a still corpse before Ramsay's court. A gasp moved through the smallfolk. The Maester rushed forward. A sudden failure of the heart, it was announced. Not uncommon in men of Lord Baelish's age, though certainly unfortunate. As he was Lord Protector of the Vale, his body would need to be preserved until a Maester of the Vale could arrive and evaluate his death, as was proper between allies. The men Petyr had brought with him would guard his corpse until this could be accomplished.  
  
Ramsay was grim with anger, tense, coiled. It was worse than bad luck. It could be ruinous. Sansa saw him juggle considerations as he moved, weighing the potential loss of the Vale Knights against the forces Rickon might be able to muster. The Iron Throne could be called upon to provide men, Sansa saw him think. But they would be men of the West and South, men of summer. Stannis Baratheon's men had not done so well in the North.  
  
So preoccupied was he that he failed to note the whispers of the smallfolk, mutterings of the curse the old gods had brought to the bastard, of how a guest had dropped dead in front of them all. Once they were looking for it, the smallfolk saw ill omens abound everywhere. A cracked mirror, a broken sword. Meat that had spoiled despite the salt that kept it. The smallfolk were restless and afraid.  
  
Sansa watched them, and listened to them, and gazed upon her hands folded gracefully into her lap as she wondered at her touch and its sudden lethality.  
  
She had _wanted_ to kill Petyr, but she hadn't meant to do it. Had it been her? Or had it truly been a sudden attack of the heart which felled him? It seemed obvious that it must be what the Maester had said. Anything else was too fantastical, too wishful.  
  
But hadn't she touched Rickon with healing coolness? Once, twice. Could she manage a third time?  
  
When her husband took his rights that night, could her touch unmake him?  
  
***  
  
In the game of cyvasse, the rabble could be positioned to overtake the dragon. A riot of terrified men and women had no brain, no reasoning. Sansa had thought to take the reins and control it, but she had forgotten that she was her husband's Lady, a Bolton, and not a Stark of Winterfell.  
  
When they came for him, they came for her, too.  
  
***  
  
The first warning was the noise. Shouting, screaming, crashing, the sound of humanity angered past all reason. The second warning was the smell of scorched flesh and wool. Ramsay was with Sansa in her bed, taking little care in how he fucked her for how the movements jostled her feet, which ached with every small movement. He had just finished within her when he noted the sound. Sansa had been hearing it for a few moments before. The sound was so familiar. She had heard it only once before but it had seared into her memory. She would always know it.  
  
She hadn't tried to murder her husband yet. She had considered it, was eager for it, but it was so close to Petyr's death and she must be clever. One death, unfortunate. Two deaths, in the same manner, a conspiracy. Sansa had little wish to be branded a poisoner. There were whisperings enough about her role in Joffrey's end. She had abided this long, she could survive a little longer.  
  
Ramsay cracked open the door. Light, brighter than torches, flickered in. He closed the door. His movements were unhurried, but not slow. There was a thoughtfulness to his expression that was so unlike him that it startled Sansa. "This is unexpected," he murmured. Sansa resisted the urge to name him a fool. It was only unexpected to one not paying any attention.  
  
He dressed quickly and warmly, pulling some of Sansa's own furs over his clothes – they were too small, so he bundled them over his shoulders. "I doubt I will have the chance to pack, my Lady, so you will forgive this theft."  
  
"You're leaving?"  
  
"Aye," Ramsay said. There was a queer humour in his face. He seemed strangely jolly as he barked a shortened laugh. "This is an odd life, Sansa, and the wheel is always turning. I have so enjoyed my time as your Lord but I fear now we must part ways."  
  
Sansa drew back, pressing against her pillows. She brought her blankets over her body, wincing at the pain as her feet were jostled. She did not think it would be so simple as Ramsay taking leave. And indeed he came to her and leaned over her and placed both tender hands around her throat.  
  
"I wish I could take my time with you, sweet girl, but time is in short supply and so this sorrow must be brief." And with clenched grip he began to choke her.  
  
She fought him, of course, she clawed him, she slapped him, and raked her nails across his face. She struggled. She pulled at his hands on her neck. If she could only have a moment to think, to gather the coldness in her hands, then she could bring him to death with her.  
  
Her eyes bulged and she couldn't breathe. Black spots burned across her vision.  
  
Perhaps she died, or perhaps she merely lost consciousness and Ramsay took it for her death, but in either case he left her on her bed, her nakedness and brokenness on display for the horde when it crashed through the door mere moments later. Perhaps the riot would have torn her to pieces, or raped her to death, but instead they were momentarily quieted by her body, by the bloom of bruises circling her throat, and they left her there rather than risk the wrath of the old gods by desecrating her corpse.  
  
Sansa witnessed all this as she stood by her body. She was outside of herself. This was a vision. She looked down upon her body and saw its bareness and its humiliation. She thought, dispassionately, that it was no wonder Ramsay had never caught a babe on her. She was far too thin. She followed after the riot as it moved through and devastated Winterfell. There was no care for the strength and beauty of those things that had endured within her family's ancestral home for generations; the smallfolk destroyed it all. They broke and smashed. A not inconsiderable number of them were killed by the guardsmen and soldiers, but this did not break their spirit. Instead, they surged forward in a frenzy of rage and determination, hate driving them past caution. Sansa as a woman could understand them, but as a spirit she was scornful and felt herself higher than them, more worthy of being called a person. For after all, could she not think and reason? And hadn't they thrown away both of those abilities?  
  
She watched as the smallfolk broke through the kitchen's stores and raided the larder, reaching for the casks of ale and wine. That was well enough and fine, she could be reconciled to their drinking and even their destruction. She had also lived under Ramsay. Driving him away required celebration. But then they began to move to the Crypts, some chanting to loot the graves, and this was too far.  
  
She brought the cold to them then. A sudden chilling frost. The temperature dropped and she saw their breaths form dense clouds of white. The riot's rage turned to fear and confusion. She saw each man and woman's individual mind return to them in slow increments, retreating from the group way of thinking, of acting. She dropped the temperature further and saw them begin to violently tremble.  
  
A new movement gripped them. _Winterfell is cursed_ , they said. _We must leave before we freeze to death._  
  
A surprising few stopped to gather food, and nearly as one the group hurried out of her family's halls. Sansa watched them depart. They left their fallen, and the bodies of the guards and soldiers, behind. A different mindlessness overtook them as they shambled away. They wanted only to survive. Sansa could respect that. It was what she wanted as well.  
  
Her ghost wandered the rooms and hallways of Winterfell, for how long she didn't know. Eventually she found herself back at her own bedside, looking down upon herself. Her body's skin was blue with cold. But she didn't think she would feel it, even if she were inside of it. The cold had no power over her. Her ghost was wearied. She thought her body looked like a comfortable place to rest, and so she climbed back within it, and sighed, and slept.  
  
***  
  
The following days were ones of peace. It was easy to have peace when she was the only living thing in all of Winterfell.  
  
There was trouble with movement, of course. It was difficult enough to use the chamberpot, and there was no one to empty it, but there was also the question of sustenance and the distance between Sansa's room and the kitchen. In the end, Sansa re-bound her feet as tightly as she could bear, and took a sword for a makeshift staff, and hobbled painfully to the kitchens that were sharply depleted but still rich enough to sustain one girl, for at least the next few days.  
  
She ate when hungry and drank when thirsty, and sang to herself for the pleasantness of the sound and the sheer joy of the sensation. It would be a fine thing to have a stack of books to keep her occupied, but it was not a pressing enough need to bear the pain walking to the library would bring her. There were some rags she fashioned into a bed and she stoked one of the smaller kitchen fires to life so she could cook small things as she liked – warm drinks, soups, and the like. She toasted bread and ate it with preserves from the Reach. She slept and woke without fear. Her feet ached and she unbound them, then re-bound them once more. She did not think they were healing well. But she didn't mind.  
  
She lived in this way for perhaps a week, or mayhaps even more, before the first rider came to Winterfell. It was the one her siblings called brother, Jon Snow.  


* * *

 

 

The girl that greeted Jon in the familiar kitchens of Winterfell bore little resemblance to the girl he'd last seen as hale and hearty and riding for the South. She was taller and thinner, as if she'd been stretched. Her cheeks were hollow and her blue eyes bleak. Her copper red hair was a buzzed short length, not even covering her ears. Though she had a womanly figure, it was far too thin and lacked even a hint of muscle – all bone and angle, cruelty written in the deprivation of her form. Yet she was calm as she said, "Hello, Jon," and seemed not to even notice the cold that reached Jon through his furs.  
  
"Sansa," Jon said, both naming her and greeting her. He didn't know what else to say. It was an awkward moment that stretched between them.  
  
"If you are here," Sansa said slowly, "then are there others to follow?"  
  
"I'm here because of rumours we have heard," Jon said heavily. The whispers came from all directions. Smallfolk had burned down Winterfell, had rioted and killed its lord and its lady. Its lord Jon had no care for – indeed, he felt only grim satisfaction at the notion of Ramsay's death, tempered with regret that he had no part in it. But Rickon had reeled at the thought of Sansa's murder and Jon too was thrown into black despair. To find her here was an unexpected gift.  
  
"It is an odd thing to send the Lord Commander of the Night Watch alone into territory that may belong to an enemy yet," Sansa said. There was a question lurking in her statement that she didn't come outright to ask. That took a certain amount of skill and experience, a politician's stance. Jon recognized it even if he couldn't use it himself.  
  
He explained, "There are rumours that the castle is cursed. We sent in scouts at different times and they each reported different things, and so we suspected they had not entered Winterfell at all and had instead given us fabrications."  
  
"You are the first to come," Sansa confirmed with a graceful nod.  
  
Jon's jaw tightened to a displeased scowl.  
  
"Oh, Jon, you can't blame them. Strange things have happened here. Some of the oldest laws of the oldest gods have been broken here." She was strangely serene. She was filthy and unwashed, and bruises still lingered on her ash white skin. Yet despite all this she had the bearing of a queen. "I knew there would be a riot, but I didn't guess how soon. Petyr's death tipped the balance."  
  
"Petyr?"  
  
"Lord Baelish. Protector of the Vale. A vile man. He sold me to the Boltons months ago. When he came to visit, he suffered a failure of heart and died quite suddenly. To the smallfolk it looked entirely as if the old gods had cursed Ramsay's household." She reached a slender hand and Jon took it in his gloved one. Even through the leather he could feel the coldness of her touch and he marveled that she was not shivering.  "Jon, tell me. Rickon? Is he well? Did he find you?"  
  
Jon squeezed her slender fingers gently. "He recovers still. It will take a long while for him to be fully strong, but he will suffer no lasting damage from the poison. His friend Osha is always with him. A Free Woman is a strong protector and she lets no harm come near him. She guards him well."  
  
Sansa closed her eyes and exhaled, long and slow. "Thank the gods, old and new," she murmured.  
  
The coldness of Winterfell had preserved the fallen dead and so the odour was not overwhelming or even too noticeable. Jon had walked through the eerie halls feeling disquieted before finding Sansa in the kitchen. It would take a few groups of men working together to clear the castle of the corpses, mayhaps the better part of a fortnight before it could be inhabited again. Rickon was encamped with the Free Folk who were most loyal to Jon and would be safe until the work was finished. They could, surprisingly somewhat easily, retake their home. It seemed a divine gift, but somehow Jon was made uneasy.  
  
There was something deeply wrong here. Something unnatural, in a way he felt was almost familiar. A feeling in the air. A sensation, intangible, but prickling against his skin. _There is a horror here_ , he thought.  
  
He wanted nothing more than to take Sansa and leave this place until it could be cleared of the dead and each fireplace kindled back to warmth and fire. Life should, and would, be returned to Winterfell.  
  
He had to carry Sansa out because she couldn't walk. She was long-limbed and light as a feather, awkward in his arms. He nestled her closer to him with the thought to keep her warmer. But she seemed to not even tremble in the stinging cold.  
  
***  
  
The reclamation of Winterfell was brisk work made light by the fervour of a few dozen eager men and women of the Free Folk. They saw the stone walls and thought it a fine defence against the walking dead who were to come. Rickon, who had much love for the wildlings, was quick to promise any who wished it a home within the castle walls. It was a guarantee that people would work harder, faster, and longer, in defence of their own home rather than property of some lord's.  
  
Rickon tried to help as much as he could, but he was frail from sickness still. He and Sansa laid on pallets across from each other in the same tent with a warm brazier, tended to by Osha. Jon took his meals with them when possible. Often, Sansa would be sitting upright with an open book on her lap, reading aloud in measured musical tones. She and Osha were not terribly fond of one another but there was no open enmity either. There was a quiet peace in the tent that filled Jon with a contentment he had never known, even as a lad, cast outside of the family unit as their father's bastard.  
  
Sansa's feet had had to be re-broken to heal correctly. Jon had insisted on being there when the work was one. Their Maester had gone through all his store of the most potent pain relievers and so Sansa was left to bear most of that weight alone. The least Jon could do was hold her hand throughout the ordeal.  
  
"It's all right," she'd said after. "I could feel the difference. It wasn't meant to hurt me. You wouldn't think it would matter so, but it does. When someone hurts me to hurt me, it feels different." Despite these words, her face was strained and her body weak. Her grip on his hand was strong, however, and he took heart from it.  
  
A Southron knight appeared the day after they moved back into Winterfell. Jon took the knight for a man at first until she named herself Brienne of Tarth. She was the tallest woman Jon had ever seen. A squire followed after her. She asked him, humbly, for an audience with the Lady Sansa.  
  
It was this address that brought Jon's keen attention to her. Lady Sansa and not Lady Bolton. A demarcation that not all of Rickon's bannermen had made when Rickon was calling them. But Rickon had told Jon of the scars he'd seen on Sansa's arms, and the rigid fear on her face when she spoke of her husband, and Jon knew her feet had to be broken to keep her from fleeing Ramsay's side; the Starks had the oldest and the truest claim on her. He brought the woman knight to Sansa's solar and stood guard behind Sansa's shoulder. The solar was kept blazing warm and Sansa was kept wrapped in furs as was bade by the Maester who insisted on such measures for the lady's healing.  
  
When Brienne saw Sansa, the big knight went to her knees and begged for forgiveness. There was a confused story of a candle and failing to answer a call. Jon could piece together some of the context, though not all, but he was loathe to interrupt. Sansa was fragile – if someone startled her, or drew her focus, it could take her a while and much effort to regain her sense of time and being. She covered this trait well with her trained courtesies and natural charm, but Jon could see how it frustrated her and confused her. It made his heart ache. There was a thin shell of shock that covered Sansa still, insulating her from the world but obfuscating the world at the same time. Jon had seen it in some of the wildlings who had escaped the dead. He even felt it himself at times.  
  
The knight's squire stood as far away as was permissible but Sansa's gaze flickered over him once, then twice. "You," she said, recognizing him.  
  
He sketched an awkward bow – technically correct, but graceless and uncomfortable. "My lady." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Would you like me to step outside?"  
  
"The sight of you does not offend me," Sansa said, amused. "Your former master was a kind husband to me. But you were a Lannister's man, and now you travel with a knight who carries a Lannister's symbol, and a Lannister still sits on the Iron Throne. So," and her gaze tilted back to Brienne, "Tell me, Ser, how am I to give my trust to you? Your presence here endangers my brother, the Lord of Winterfell."  
  
Brienne of Tarth's lips tightened and her jaw clenched. "My lady, I would never – "  
  
"There is no one in this world," Sansa interrupted. "Not one who is as important to me as Rickon. He is the King in the North and we will guard him well." Her bleak eyes were cool and her expression as smooth as a mask. "You may not remain here."  
  
Brienne's shoulders dropped.  
  
"However," Sansa said, and Brienne looked up sharply. "If you are sincere in your offer of service, if you have been truthful in what you say of my mother, if you truly wish to earn redemption – I will set you a quest."  
  
Brienne's face transformed, luminous, eyes bright, expression keen. She was an arrow in need of a target. "Anything, my lady."  
  
"Ramsay Bolton left here as the mob began their attack. He gave no indication for his path of travel, nor whether he would seek out Northern lords loyal to him. I believe he may have taken a few of his hounds with him. Find him for me. Bring him to me. He need not be alive when you do." Sansa leaned forward. "Succeed in this," she said, voice dropping, "and I will accept you into my service and my home." She leaned back. "The kitchens will provision you. The Maester will give you a bag of coin. You will not return unless it is with my husband, or his head."  
  
Brienne stood and then dropped into a steep bow. "My lady," she said, and took her leave.  
  
Jon waited until the door of the solar had closed behind the knight and her squire before he paced in front of his sister, grim anger crowding his throat and choking the breath from him. "Sansa –"  
  
She looked at him coolly, blankly.  
  
"Why did you not tell us he lived? I would have –"  
  
"You are necessary here. What use would there be in having you chase a craven monster who the North believes cursed? No hearth will accept him or else risk the old gods' wrath."  
  
"You do not know that! He could summon his banners and even now could be gathering forces to march against us. He could have gone South to the Iron Throne and asked for men to retake the North."  
  
"Cersei is not a fool," Sansa said softly. "She is a monster of another sort, but she is not a stupid one. She would put forth a puppet in the North before she lets Ramsay regain his influence. He is unreliable and treacherous and too enamoured of his hobbies to be a good ally to her. And you did not see how the smallfolk looked at him, what they spoke of him. A Northern lord would not risk him, not again. No; you are necessary here, you are Rickon's best defense. I would not send you away from him."  
  
"You should have told me," Jon insisted. "I need to know this in order to protect you. In order to predict what is coming for us. I need to know these things, Sansa!" His voice rose to a shout.  
  
She blinked at him slowly. He felt shame grow in his chest. His head dropped.  
  
"I do not mean to frighten you," he apologized.  
  
"I don't fear you," she said quietly. "You could never frighten me. I have seen things, and things have been done to me. I do not believe I will ever fear again." She sighed. "Very well, I should have told you. Now you know. What will you do with the knowledge?"  
  
"I will have to think on it," Jon said.  
  
"You can't leave us here without you," she said. "Rickon needs you."  
  
Beneath her resolute expression, and despite her claim of having no fear, there was something very like it in her voice. Jon peered past Sansa's inhuman poise. Anger softened its grip on his heart. "I will not leave you," he promised. "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. We will remain together. We will live together."  
  
Warmth flickered in Sansa's eyes and she stared at him steadily, looking at him and into him. She smiled very faintly. "We are the Starks in Winterfell."  
  
There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Jon bent his knee to Sansa and took her chill hand in his own. They gazed deeply at one another. A connection built between them, shared history and loss, shared blood. He felt as if he were pledging himself to her, something different than a knight, different than a vassal. A deep and wordless promise he made to her. Sansa lifted her other hand and rested its palm against Jon's cheek. "Our words," she murmured. "Winter is coming." She breathed, and added, "Winter is here."

 

***  
  
There was peace when Jon was with Sansa. Her clever fingers stitched his cloak, and there was warmth also. But at times the stillness in her was not calm or contemplation.

 

Otherworldly poise ruled her. When she was unaware that he beheld her, a queer motion rippled through her skin. Ice settled on her. She seemed less flesh, more spirit. The cold men who ruled the dead had the same look, hoar frost riming their skin.

 

Jon shut his eyes to it. He did not want to see.  


* * *

 

 

When Bran came home, Rickon was well enough to greet him at a run. Meera Reed stood at the side and Osha met her with furrowed brow. The girl had aged, had sorrowed. She had met winter. Bran looked at Rickon with peculiar blankness – no warmth, no humour. An inhuman presence peered out behind his eyes. "I am the Three-Eyed Raven," he said, simply, later in Lady Sansa's solar. The lady could not stand to greet her brother, and her brother could not move to meet her. They stared at each other with the same alien-ness, and a queer acknowledgement moved from one to the other.  
  
"What does that mean?" Jon Snow asked, snappish. His eyes were dark and stormy. He was confused and distraught, glad to see his kin alive, but uneasy. Osha shared his misgivings. Nothing felt natural or right.  
  
Bran turned his head slowly, eerily, to look at Jon. Grief pierced Osha. "It means the boy we all knew is gone," Osha murmured. She had seen it in the bone men and women of the Free Folk. She had seen it in the green seers, and she had seen it in the wargs. Bran had emptied himself and otherness had walked in. Osha looked to the girl who had taken him. "You were meant to _guard_ him."  
  
"It isn't anything to do with Meera," Bran interjected, still calm, so calm. "It was necessary. I must be what I am for what is coming. Just as Sansa must be what she is, and just as Jon must be as he is."  
  
"Stop speaking in riddles," Osha said, sharply. She went to Bran and took his hands in hers. He looked up at her. His gaze was ageless. Rickon stood behind him, looking so terribly young.  
  
"You have done as you must and kept our brother alive. He is most precious to us all," Bran said. He tightened his grip on Osha's hand for a brief moment and then released it, pulling back to himself. "Sansa has been reborn in ice. Jon has been reborn in fire. The Night King approaches, and his wights with him." He turned his head now and looked directly to Jon. "The Wall will not hold." And then he turned to Sansa. "Unless someone is there to hold it."  
  
"So that's why," she murmured.  
  
Lady Sansa would be a great beauty with health and rest, but at this time was pinched and pale. Her wealth of glorious hair had been shorn. Her thin body had been wrapped in thick brocade and warm furs. She had a cold look to her face and in her eyes, not warm or welcoming, not giving. Brittleness was in her and it made Osha wary.  
  
"Neither of you speaks sense," Jon ground out.  
  
Bran and Sansa looked at him with the same eerie expression, an emptiness that was like the bottom of a lake. Cold and numbing.  
  
It wasn't just their gazes. The temperature itself was dropping rapidly. Frost raced across the stone floor, across the stone walls. The torches in the sconces guttered. They looked frantically around the room, shuddering at the unnatural change.  
  
"I bring the winter," Sansa murmured. "I went into the cold and it took me." She breathed out, long and slow, and leaned back in her chair. The abrupt chill receded as quickly as it had come.  
  
"This is madness," Jon said. But there was fear in his face.  
  
"The world is mad," Bran replied.  
  
***  
  
The Dragon Queen had sent a summons that Jon declined. It was a strange missive – it seemed to assume Jon was somehow King or Lord of the North. Information moved strangely, but still this seemed an odd rumour. Anyway, Sansa was too delicate and Rickon too vulnerable to leave. He had to guard them. Bran told him he must go. "Dragonglass. Dragons," Bran said. "These two things will turn the tide. You must win them for us."  
  
Things were so much more difficult than Jon wanted them to be. There was nothing simple. Give him a sword and a foe and he could fight. Set him after Ramsay, set him against the Night King. This he could do. Sending him to negotiate terms with a foreign queen was folly.  
  
What did they have to negotiate with, anyway? An army of wildlings and what few forces would still answer them when Rickon called his banners; an uncertain alliance with the Vale and ties to the Riverlands that were still under siege. Daenerys Stormborn came with dragons and fire and blood.  
  
"She is hungry for family," Bran said. "She will be generous to family."  
  
"There are no more Targaryens," Jon said.  
  
"There is at least one more," Bran said. He looked steadily at Jon, implacably. As if he were waiting for Jon to come to some sort of realization. "Rhaegar Targaryen kept Lyanna Stark in a Tower. He gave her Kingsguard who died for her blood. For Rhaegar Targaryen's blood."  
  
Jon shook his head. The knowledge was seeping through him, like water through porous stone. "No," he said.  
  
"Father went to save her, but he was too late. She had had no one to attend her. It was her first time brought to the birthing bed."  
  
"No," Jon whispered.  
  
"She was alone and scared, but full of love for her child. Her son. For you."  
  
"That can't be true –"  
  
"Blood of my blood," Bran said softly. "Cousin."  
  
***  
  
But Sansa refuted these plans. "We must stay together," she said. "It is the only way we will survive."  
  
"We need the dragons," Bran said.  
  
"When she is done conquering the South, she will come for the North," Sansa replied. "Of us two, which has the knowledge of Queens? I tell you, she will do this. She will come and we will show her the enemy."  
  
"We need the dragonglass," Bran said, insistent, but with that blank tone that unnerved Jon.  
  
"We will send an emissary and ask for it, then," Sansa said. "It is worthless against anyone but the dead. We can negotiate for its sale." Her brothers gawped at her and she rolled her eyes. "Honestly, it's as if none of you has heard of trade."  
  
"And you truly believe the conqueror Queen will be willing to part with something we need for a mysterious purpose?" Rickon asked skeptically.  
  
"She will if she thinks she is opening the way to a potential alliance," Sansa said. "She has already extended greetings to Jon. This is not such a stretch. It is politics." For a moment she sounded so like her old self that it made Jon's heart gladden. She glanced at him. "The man that you trust, Seaworth. Send him. If he is as skilled as you believe, he will do this for us." She glanced to her hands, made into fists on her lap. "One thing I know, we must not be parted. Bad things happen when we are not together. Bad things happen when Starks go South."  
  
"But I'm not a Stark," Jon said grimly.  
  
"You are," Rickon said earnestly. "You are a Stark of Winterfell and this is your home. We belong to the North. We must stay in the North."  
  
They looked to Bran, whose brow furrowed. The blankness of his expression seemed to twist in sudden indecision. Finally he nodded, giving way to Sansa's decree. "The shape of things to come is not clear. Sansa sees things that I perhaps cannot. Jon should not go South."  
  
Now they looked to Rickon. "You must give the order," Sansa told him softly, though not gently.  
  
"You are Lord Stark," Bran said.  
  
Rickon swallowed. The man he was becoming showed through, wavering with the image of the boy he was. He looked more like Robb with every day. The thought was bitter and sweet. "We must send an emissary to the Dragon Queen to treat for dragonglass. We must strengthen the Wall. We must prepare our people. I order you all to do these things, as the Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North."  
  
"King in the North," Sansa murmured quietly. Then she smiled, though it didn't touch her eyes. "As my lord commands, so it will be done." She glanced to Bran, to Jon, to Meera and Osha standing unobtrusively in the corner. "Let's get to work."  
  
***  
  
Arya never came. Instead a raven flew, dark words on dark wings, announcing Cersei's death. She had been assassinated and her head gruesomely mounted on a spike.  


* * *

 

 

The Umbers and Karstarks attacked at night. They had absorbed numbers from the fallen house of Bolton, and their force had swelled to three thousand. They fought for Winterfell, they fought to possess it. The Karstarks even had kin-claim, though generations old, and they had united their daughter to a son of the Umbers, and called that they would create a new line of Northern Kings, of good blood, of old blood.  
  
Bran had raised the castle an hour before their first strike, which was enough time to close the gate and all the entrances, and enough time to have archers at the posts – and the Free Folk made fierce bowmen, as Jon could personally attest – but not enough time for much else. Jon wished to ride out and meet them, Ghost at his side, but Rickon kept him back for a council of war.  
  
"Though it is more like a council of battle," Rickon said, grim humour twisting his lips. For once he resembled not Robb, or Sansa – their long lines similar – but Ned Stark, stoic and kind. "What are we to do? They seem set to besiege us."  
  
 "They have more men than us," Sansa noted calmly. "But we are in the superior position."  
  
"They will try to shoot any raven from the sky," Bran said. "If we send messages to our allies by dark, our chances for success are greater."  
  
"We can send for those at the Wall," Jon said. "There are still wildlings there who would come. The men of the Watch won't break their vows, and we shouldn't move them besides."  
  
"I can appeal to the Vale," Sansa murmured quietly.  
  
"The Mormonts will come, but their number is small. If they answer our call, then the Glovers and Hornwoods may also," Bran said.  
  
"Mother's people?" Rickon asked. "The Riverlands."  
  
Sansa sighed. "We know too little," she admitted. "Cersei is dead but that does not mean their siege has ended. Even if it were ended, they may not come to our aid."  
  
"The Blackfish will come," Bran said. "Uncle Edmure.... Not him. But Uncle Brynden will answer." Then Bran paused. "There is another option."  
  
***  
  
In the night, the wolves came. Their hunt song called eerily across the frozen fields and the notes echoed strangely against the muffling snow. Three packs had come to the Starks. One was led by their sister-wolf Nymeria, who no longer knew them and who filled them with grief and longing.  
  
The armies of the North huddled in their siege position. The sensation of being hunted was uneasy on them. Each night was filled with howls and each morning found dead bodies, killed swiftly, their corpses left as gruesome punctuation to the landscape.  
  
Unnatural behaviour in wolves. Strange and uncanny.  
  
Of the Starks, only Sansa could not warg. She had the notion that she had been able to, once; that she had done it, in her wolf dreams, in her bird flight imaginings. But – and she was increasingly sure of this now – the rules of magic were different for the dead, and she was no longer of the living. She did not share this thinking with the others. She held it close to her breast. They would disbelieve her and think her mad, or believe her and name her an abomination. In either case she wouldn't blame them. She was mad; she was an ugliness on the world. She had no place in it any longer. But she would cling to it as long as she could for the chance that doing so would keep her brothers alive. Jon alive.  
  
When Jon had told her of the Night King and his wights, a mystery had fallen into place for her. Sansa knew that whatever they were, she was kin to them. Old Nan's stories of the Night's Queen had new resonance. Sansa thought of her, the eldritch woman of horror whose remembrance still haunted the North. Sansa thought, _I could be this, too._

  
Her two brothers and Jon sat night-long with blinded eyes moving through the bodies of the wolves that harried those that sought to take Winterfell from them. Sansa kept vigil.  
  
And in the hours that her family rested, Sansa stood outside of her body and walked.  
  
***  
  
By day the Free Folk fired upon the Northmen and the Northmen battered at Winterfell's walls. By night, there were great bonfires lit to drive back the wolves. They could continue on this way for months more, but eventually falling food stores would starve those of Winterfell out. And something else would force the conclusion first: the army of the dead gathering to march upon them. It was Jon's fierce belief that they would need all the numbers they could muster; that they must find a way to negotiate with their attackers. He was their general and Sansa believed him.  
  
Sansa followed the Kingsroad north. Her steps were bound only by what her eyes could see, and she crossed grand distances in less than a blink. The Umbers' Last Hearth rose before her sharply. Sansa's form was insubstantial and she moved through the stone walls without a shudder. She had never been here before, but all great keeps had the same logic of structure. It did not take long for her to find what she sought.  
  
Smalljon's son had his look. The Karstark girl lay with him, fully clothed, rosy-cheeked. They were each so young and still innocent as babes. Their fathers had done evil but they were as yet untouched. They were meant to be the future of the North, the future of their families.  
  
Sansa knelt by their bed and stared at them a long while. They breathed deeply and easily. Resentment stirred her breast. Hadn't she been so young when Joffrey came to Winterfell? And Bran – when he had fallen, he had been smaller than Ned Umber. Rickon had been smaller yet when he had been sent into exile. Last Hearth had been meant to guard him, to shield him. It had betrayed him.  
  
She waited for the resentment to turn to anger and hate, so that she could do what she must and feel nothing but vindication. Yet two children remained before her and she was not so monstrous yet.  
  
She stood and left their rooms, so that she could find those for whom her hate rose fiercely and easily. There were many. Her ghostly touch froze them all.  
  
She waited for the morning, and the guardsman who came to tend to the children. As he woke them and beckoned them to breakfast, Sansa stood behind him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and brought the cold to him, slowly, so that the children could see. It was necessary for them to understand and to fear.  
  
When the man had fallen dead, the children clutching each other and huddling close, Sansa leaned forward and exhaled frost against their cheeks. Then she turned and flew, through stone walls, past stone halls, across snowy fields, for Winterfell.  
  
***  
  
In the night there were wolves carrying death. In the morning there were ravens carrying words. From Last Hearth, and from Karhold. Sansa made many visits.  
  
_You are at our gates_ , Sansa thought to her enemy. _But we are in your homes._  
  
***  
  
Her tormenters had taught her this: the will of man was not hard to break.

* * *

 

 

"They say winter comes as a maid," Ser Jorah said to Daenerys Stormborn. They were on the Kingsroad and marching North, with a portion of her armies and her three dragons. Daenerys and Jorah rode abreast at the front with her Dothraki guard; Tyrion and Missandei were somewhere in the middle of their procession, looking over recovered documents from the Red Keep.  
  
"They?" Daenerys arched her brow.  
  
"The smallfolk." Jorah gestured a sweeping hand outward. "I hear their songs when I scout ahead. They say that winter came in the form of a young girl for House Frey. She had mercy only on the women. And they say that winter in the form of his young bride took the bastard of Dreadfort."  
  
"These Northerners are superstitious."  
  
"Hm," Jorah demurred. "Say what you will, but there has always been something uncanny about the people of the North. I grew up there, but I must admit it has its mysteries from me still. There may be more truth in it than we know."  
  
"Well, you can question Tyrion as to the matter of the bride. I've heard tell she was his, first." Daenerys' words were tart, but her brow was furrowed. Daenerys did worry. The semi-prophecy she had heard was linked to both her and Jon Snow, who was, according to his man Seaworth, _not_ the lord of Winterfell she believed him to be; nor even the Lord-Commander of the Night's Watch. He was just a bastard get of the Stark line.  
  
Tyrion did not say much of his wife, but even that was telling. Her Hand was not a shy man, nor one of little eloquence. The Starks were a problem. Daenerys could sense it. They were of snow and ice.  
  
She was a Targaryen conqueror of old. Her success in the South spoke of it. The Starks would bend the knee to her or she would bring them fire. She would bring them blood.  
  
***  
  
Jaime Lannister's face laid preserved in Arya's sack. She had worn it to take his sister, the Queen. Cersei had greeted her brother's visage with scorn and derision and desire, ardent and loathsome. _So those rumours were true_ , Arya had thought. It was sickening, but in the moment she only felt humour. In that way that being Faceless dulled all horror, so the grotesqueness was lessened. Cersei's creatures had absented themselves from her chambers when it was evident she was intent on her brother's nakedness. For all her political power, Cersei was physically weak – or at the least, not strong enough to keep her life. It was easy for the execution to be done once they were alone.  
  
It may have been a sign that Arya had done too much killing in too short a span of time but she felt nothing as she took Cersei's life, save a hollow satisfaction. It had been more fulfilling killing the Kingslayer than killing the Queen. Ah, well. Mayhap Arya should suspend her work, for a time at least. There were still names on her list. But she could wait to collect the Mountain.  
  
She had learned her mistake from killing Cersei. Arya wanted to feel it.  
  
Whispers ran through the wind of her home. She heard contradicting tales. First one brother had survived after all, then another; then both, then neither. Jon had been killed. Jon was alive. No one said aught of Sansa save that she was a traitorous whore bitch who dripped poison to any man that loved her. Her touch was an ill omen and she meant nothing good for any household that sheltered her. Arya's lips twisted to think of it. How her soft and pretty sister had fallen. It would be good if Sansa _had_ turned poisoner; it would show she had acquired some useful skills. But for all their differences, and for all her numbness, sadness still touched Arya at the thought of gentle Sansa being forced to such acts.  
  
Arya turned her path to the North. The Dragon Queen's armies marched the Kingsroad. Daenerys meant to take the North. Arya wasn't sure if there were any Starks left there to hold it, but if there were then she felt she should join them.  
  
It was winter and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.  
  
***  
  
Yara Greyjoy received the gift of bones with stoicism. She did no weeping over them. Her uncle moved against her and she had no time, nor inclination, for grief. She gave Theon to the sea. That was all, and that was enough.  
  
***  
  
The Long Night had fallen and the dead marched upon the Wall. From the South came the armies of sand and wind, came the dragons of fire. But first arrived Brienne of Tarth, and Ramsay Bolton with her.  
  
Sansa could stand and even walk a little, though it pained her, now. Her hair had grown to her ears and her cheeks had filled their hollows. Ramsay was roughened and wild. Brienne had been unkind with the rope, harsh with the gag. Ramsay had less teeth now than the last Sansa saw of him. Brienne explained to those that would listen how she had found her quarry, but Sansa heard nothing, only the rush of blood in her ears.  
  
She moved to her bound husband. He grinned at her, quite insane. Coiled around his neck like a hangman's noose was Sansa's stolen hair in a dirtied braid. She took her knife to it. Jon tensed behind her. She knew what he thought, what he feared, but she only wanted back what was hers. She wanted only what was fair. Sansa cut her token from Ramsay's neck and let it drop, a limp rope, to the ground.

She stared at him. His eyes were crazed yet aware. Ramsay had an animal's slyness, a native cunning. Cruelty was a hungry mouth whose jaw snapped in his heart. The smart thing would be to kill him now. But she murmured, "I will take my time." And smiled.  
  
***  
  
Her brothers argued either side of the debate, but in the end Sansa went to the Wall. She sensed the rightness of the idea as soon as Bran had hinted it. She brought with her only two great trunks, one filled with her necessaries and the other filled with her husband. He still occasionally moved, weak thumps against the heavy wood. She had taken his hands already, blackened the flesh with cold until it crumbled away. She had taken his ears and his feet also. And she had taken his death, so that he could not move beyond her reach before she willed it so. Her family and the smallfolk looked at her askance, but none dared oppose her. For who could argue she had not the right? And, more, who could stop her? She saw fear in them when they looked upon her. She saw her monstrousness reflected.

Jon, despite all this, still wanted to escort her; but she was loathe to leave Rickon without him. "Brienne is my sworn shield now," Sansa insisted. "She will be my guard. You must be here for when the dragons come." For they would come. Bran saw it through the sight of birds. Fire and blood rode toward Winterfell.

The Wall was bleak and overwhelming. Wind moved over it strangely, this construct of ancient ice and ancient magic. Sansa laid her palm upon it and knew. The one who had raised it, ages before, had been like her. She would take the task now.

She rode to the top and walked its rampart. She looked over the other side of the Wall and saw the endless waves of dead. They approached. Steady and unceasing. She felt them as a shadow in her mind. When she sent her ghost to walk among them, they stirred like blades of grass to a wind. Those Jon called the White Walkers were a long distance away, but their uncanny blue eyes pierced her.

Away from Winterfell, away from kin, with only Brienne and the knight's good squire to attend her, the lie that Sansa was still human slipped away. She was a creature of the Long Night now. She would fight on this side of the Great War for as long as she could manage, clinging to the shadows of her love for family to drive her. But eventually she would go. She saw it unwinding before her. A vision of herself stood in front of her, as it had in her darkest moments. It did not beckon, but only waited. She saw the creature she would become. Hair shining and red hanging down to her waist, her unbowed body dressed in white and grey. Lady's spirit sat, full-grown, on large haunches, by her feet. She would not be alone.

 _Soon_ , the specter promised her. Sorrow and peace both filled her. Soon.  
  
***  
  
"Milady, why do you weep?" Brienne asked with sharp concern. She found a clean kerchief and proffered it with alacrity.  
  
"Do I?" Sansa accepted the cloth and dabbed beneath her eyes. Her tears darkened the cloth. "The raven from Winterfell tells me Arya has returned. My family, what there is of it, is now all together and safe. We have made allies with those who might once have destroyed us, and we gather forces against the army that approaches. There is nothing to sadden me, so I suppose these must be tears of happiness, instead."

But Brienne was watchful, and did not think this was so.

***  
  
The smallfolk sang,  
  
_Be unafraid, she comes, she comes  
Winter comes as a maid  
  
Ghostly and chill, she comes, she comes  
__Over field and through hill_

 _The sweet little sleep, she comes, she comes  
_ _Or the drowning and deep_

 _You may fear and may run, she comes, she comes  
_ _Under moon, under sun  
  
_ _There's nothing to do, so don't be afraid  
_ _When Winter comes as a maid._

**Author's Note:**

> ok so warnings: rape, marital rape, torture, flaying (p much anything u would expect from ramsay, etc), breaking of feet to reduce movement, poisoning, accidental murder, intentional murder, threat to children, psychological & emotional torture (ramsay bolton blanket warning ig), intentional ice torture/frostbite infliction, uhhh, disassociation, ostracism, noncon everything, including sansa's hair getting cut off
> 
> o right also this wasn't beta'd & it has abrupt switches in pov, etc, if that's something that rly gets ur back up. otherwise enjoy.


End file.
